The Stranger
by Busman's Holiday
Summary: Twenty years after the wedding accident, after her father Ste's death, Leah Barnes finds out the connection the stranger in her coffee shop has to her father and why no one had ever mentioned him. AU scenario exploring the idea that Ste died after being hit by the bus.


**A/N: Obviously we all know Ste's alive and well and I'd hate to think of any other possibility, but this was just an idea I had. This story is set twenty years after the accident and in this story, after Ste's death. I apologise in advance for any outpourings of emotion this might cause!**

**The Stranger**

It wasn't until a conversation with her mum over Sunday lunch, that Leah realised she could put the stalking fears to bed.

A man had come into the coffee shop where she worked as manager, and it wasn't just his frequent visits that bothered her (they got that a lot with the caffeine addicts) it was the way he hung around looking at her. Not in a creepy or a pervy sort of way, but almost sad.

Leah had just mentioned him in her chit-chat to her mother, when she mentioned his Irish accent and dark grey moustache. Amy had put her fork down.

X

It wasn't her job to clean the tables, but she needed an excuse to speak to him. There wasn't danger or threat in her mum's advice to stay away from him, and the curiosity had itched away at her through the rest of the weekend. The stranger had cleared his throat awkwardly when she approached, almost as if he were on the edge of speaking to her too. He looked up from his newspaper and she caught his eye.

"Look, this is going to sound kinda strange but, you wouldn't happen to be Brendan Brady, would you?"

He seemed startled at her direct question and his blue eyes flickered under his lids.

"The one and only," he replied. It was an arrogant response and it certainly didn't come from a man she had pictured from Amy's description. This man seemed broken.

She took a seat – the perks of being the manager – and he sat back, surprised.

After a moment's silence, he seemed keen to make his intentions clear. For someone drinking infinite double espressos, his voice was slow and calm. "I wasn't following you. It was an accident finding this place. And I realised who you were…you just remind me of someone special,"

"So," she said, fumbling around words that barely seemed to fit to form a sentence. "You knew my dad,"

He couldn't look at her then. There were things about the café he started to notice, cracks in the ceiling and smudges on the windows. "A long time ago, yes."

Leah wasn't sure she'd ever met someone like this, someone that looked as if they had a thousand secrets locked inside. She almost didn't want to bother him, fearing that if she chipped away at him, she might unlock something even more uncomfortable. "I don't mean to be rude but, I've never heard anyone talk about you. Doug's never mentioned you." Even though Doug moved back to the States soon after selling up the deli, he still made an effort to keep in contact with her and Lucas, despite Doug and his husband having a family of their own now. He had his own life and she hers and although it was a nice link to her dad, she was too young to have really known them together and contact had slipped.

He smiled then, just softly at the corners. An old name flooding him with memories. "No, I don't imagine Douglas would."

"But I'm guessing from mum's reaction, there's a reason that I've never heard of you."

"Amy. Yeah, your mum ain't a fan either," he said. He bared his teeth in a smile like he was transported back to another time, not that he was proud of his unpopularity.

She tried studying his face, wracking her brains to see if there was anything at all familiar about him. Not even the moustache that her mum had talked about in detail and that he still hand, greying and tired, above his lip, rang any bells. Hollyoaks had been such a long time ago that even when she visited as a teenager, she had no real recollection of growing up there.

"Did I know you? Like, years ago?"

"Briefly. You were just a little girl. Apple of Steven's eye." She'd heard that a lot about Ste, how much he doted on her and Lucas. It occurred to her, she'd never heard her dad called 'Steven' before, it sounded odd.

"I wish I remembered more about him,"

"He's in here, isn't he? And up here." Brendan touched his chest and then his head, a pained expression lining his face.

"Well I don't look like him, do I? He's not really my dad,"

"No but, he never treated you any differently. And he raised you, you're more like him than you think. You were everything to him,"

"And you? I mean, who were you to him?"

"A monster. Most of the time."

"Oh," Leah said, feeling that awkwardness again. Maybe Amy had been right to tell her not to open old wounds.

"Douglas and your mother, they have no reason to paint me in a good light. I treated Steven terribly. And I carry that guilt with me every day. If I'd known….then things I would have said, things I would have done differently…" Brendan said. She watched as he swallowed to clear a knot in his throat.

He'd been in love, she realised. "You and my dad…er….?"

"He's the only man I've ever loved." He had his hands wrung tightly now, under his chin. He flicked his watery gaze up from the table.

"And Doug knew,"

"Why do you think I've been erased from the history books? Your dad…he wore his heart on his sleeve. We were together before he and Doug were, and I think…if I'd been brave enough then your dad and I might've…could've…" He broke off, hands rubbing his face. "But I left it too late to tell him. I ruined our chance. I watched him get married to Douglas. And I watched him die. By the time I told him everything, he couldn't hear it."

Leah watched, mouth agape as Brendan spoke, feeling this stranger's years of pain seep into her. "I'm sorry,"

"It's my burden, my punishment,"

Like the hopeful, innocent young woman she was, she pleaded for a happy ending. She looked down at his bare un-ringed finger. "So what did you do, after dad died?"

"Years of trying to numb the pain. Drinking. Sleeping. Then I moved back to Dublin, to be near my sons. I've just come back to England to be with my baby sister. Cancer. God's still making me pay the price."

"Your poor sister," Leah said, not really knowing what else to say.

"She adored Steven, you know," he said. His face was struck with a deep sadness then, as though he were torturing himself with the 'what ifs'.

Calling time on his emotions, Brendan straightened himself up and made an attempt to stand. "I better be…It was nice to see you again, Leah."

Leah stood but stopped him for a moment, hand on his arm. She took a folded envelope from her pocket, a photograph inside. "Look, mum gave me this. She kept it. I don't know why. I think she tried to give it to your sister at the funeral but she said you'd gone AWOL. And well, Doug wouldn't want it. It's kind of a nice photo of dad. Well, and you. He looks happy,"

"Thank you," Brendan said, a cough masking his choked voice. He turned the photo over in his hand, one of him, Ste and Cheryl in Chez Chez. It had been a promo photo taken by a photographer hired to snap the guests and charge them ridiculous money for the photos, but they'd got one taken before everyone had arrived. Ste'd had bought it himself. He was all pale skin and bone in his black uniform, but a smile on his face that day. All day and night in fact. They'd slept together before and after the event (and locked themselves away mid-evening, mouths together just to ease the tension) and he looked beautiful for it.

Brendan slipped the photo into his wallet.

"It's a little nice café," he said as a parting goodbye, "Your dad'd be proud."

Leah smiled. "Well, he was my inspiration," she said, "Hence the name,"

Brendan looked at the signage above the door. _Hay Day_. He smiled softly and left.


End file.
